Each month is an opportunity to be closer to financial independence:: April 2019.
Highlights
- Expenses in April were ~19% of the income.
- Rent and bills(mobile, broadband, domestic help, etc.) was the biggest chunk of our monthly expenses.
- Entertainment expenses were higher(12%). We dined out to enjoy our marriage anniversary, bought a Hotstar subscription to watch Game of Thrones, and watched Avengers: Endgame in a movie theater.
- Shopped for clothes after 3 months.
- Minimal expenses on commute and travel.
- No unplanned/emergency expenses.
- Equity valuation took a slight hit, as markets were down during the last week of April.
- We received interest payouts from FDs, Savings bank and PPF, as it was an end of FY2018-19 and the Jan-Mar quarter.
Below is the pie-chart depicting category wise expenses:-
Cost-saving ideas
- We requested our landlord to increase the rent by 5%(and not 10%) and he accepted happily. Communication is the key.
- We shared the subscription cost of HotStar with another interested party.
- We checked offers in Dineout or Nearbuy for dining outside.
- We booked movie tickets via BookMyShow using PayPal to get 50% cashback. The cashback is received as a PayPal voucher which can be used for various payment options like movies, food, flight tickets etc.
Investments
We opened another FD and contributed to an existing RD. Also bought Mutual Funds when markets were down.
Forecast for next month
The interest payout for FY 2018-19 is yet to reflect in our EPF accounts. It will give a significant boost to our assets.
We don’t have any travel or shopping plans. Thus, our target would be to limit the expenses below 20%.
Retirement corpus as on May 1st 2019 – Rs. 1,26,62,952
Previous month’s update: March 2019
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